CinemaBlend says
Few things in the movie world are more divisive than colorblind casting. When M. Night Shyamalan did it with The Last Airbender fans responded in such outrage, that an entire website to the subject of race bending was created. When producers considered recasting the lead characters from the Asian anime Akira as white guys in the movie version, fandom erupted into chaotic accusations of racism. There’s a reason no one ever really took it seriously when the internet campaigned for Community’s Donald Glover to play Peter Parker. Because no matter how much we love Donald Glover, Peter Parker is always, well, he’s Peter Parker.
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... but Akira is all about japanese youth in Neo-Tokyo, so obviously, replacing that with american actors (not even teens anymore), in an american setting, that just changes the whole thing.
Now, adressing the whole Spider-Man issue, with a half black/half hispanic kid becoming Spider-Man: I really don't care about the ethnicity of characters when it comes to new superheroes.
I DO have a problem with comics becoming more and more about 'shock-value' and thus repeatedly killing of their major characters just so they can grab a few headlines. It's just lazy writing. Why is it so hard to just stick to one premise and within those boundaries come up with great stories? So Peter Parker, or Superman, or Batman, or Cap America, or whoever shouldn't be killed. It's ridiculous. Cause you already know they'll be back again.
Right now, they're churning out so many damn comics each month that they seem to feel the need to come up with crap like this to keep readers interested, while personally it just drives me away from it all. I just want to read stories of Batman and Robin going after the bad guys. I want to see Spider-Man go after The Sandman. Very simple stuff.
Im sick of it. Ill be open about it. Im not racist, never have been, never will be. However the simple fact people are literally racist in another way makes me mad. Race shouldn't play a role now. Black or white. Latino might have a slight argument but thats IT, nobody else does anymore period.
Try hard you get what you want.
I'm not reading this series. I never liked Ultimate Spider-Man to begin with. Tack on the "shock value" of Peter dying which has been there and done that, and then tack on the cliched race change "shock value" and to me it just looks desperate. If I see a single petition to put this "Spider-Man" in the next series of movies I will literally explode. I'm tired of it.
The Akira thing is a different thing. It has to do with story elements, not so much race.